Saddam is toast
One of the things that happened while I was packing away turkey and tossing back kahlua mudslides was that Saddam Hussein lost his appeal of the death sentence that was handed down in November. Under Iraqi law (who knew there even was such a thing?) the sentence has to be carried out within 30 days, so it looks like Saddam will be toast before the end of January. The location and date of the event will be secret, for obvious reasons. (But I bet they'll show his picture in a frame afterwards.)
I'm not a big fan of SH, but I'm a huge fan of due process and fair trials, and something about this one smells worse than a load of camel dung that's been sweating in the Baghdad sun for a week. An appeal that only lasts 7 weeks, after a trial that's been going on for a couple of years, seems a tad askew. The trial itself was fraught with weirdness -- lawyers and judges getting killed intermittently, and its use as a political tool in the US (how'd that work out for ya, Georgie?). I don't see how the guy could get a fair trial when so many of the people involved were just going through the motions, and would rather have just killed him. It seems like more of a show for the world stage than a real trial.
And what next for Iraq? Probably another strongman, maybe also to be hung in another 25 years. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Especially in that part of the world.
I'm not a big fan of SH, but I'm a huge fan of due process and fair trials, and something about this one smells worse than a load of camel dung that's been sweating in the Baghdad sun for a week. An appeal that only lasts 7 weeks, after a trial that's been going on for a couple of years, seems a tad askew. The trial itself was fraught with weirdness -- lawyers and judges getting killed intermittently, and its use as a political tool in the US (how'd that work out for ya, Georgie?). I don't see how the guy could get a fair trial when so many of the people involved were just going through the motions, and would rather have just killed him. It seems like more of a show for the world stage than a real trial.
And what next for Iraq? Probably another strongman, maybe also to be hung in another 25 years. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Especially in that part of the world.
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